New York Life’s Alex Cook sees potential in AI.

Cook noted that in implementing AI across the organization, New York Life has maintained a strong focus on the importance of people. Individuals often want to talk to a person when they have complex insurance and wealth management needs. In response, the company continues to lean into a human-centric approach, using automation and data to enable a seamless end-to-end process. This starts with digital fact finding and aggregation and using models to deliver holistic solutions.

Improving the life insurance purchase experience.

New York Life’s use of digital health data, AI’s ability to gather information from both structured and unstructured data and convert it into a useable form, and predictive models have turned what was once a multiweek underwriting process into one that delivers underwriting decisions in days, if not hours. As Cook explained, “As a mutual life insurer without any public shareholders, it is very important that we’re doing things effectively while also being sure that we’re managing risk well.”

New York Life and Generative AI.

Concerning New York Life’s increasing use of generative AI, Cook explained the significant opportunity to continue to enhance many of the models and capabilities currently in place and to ramp up active use cases across underwriting, service, hiring, and beyond to ensure that New York Life remains a modern, thriving business. He said, “The pace of change is rapid and it’s exciting. We’re on an exponential curve with many of these developments and we’re all actively thinking about what this means over the next several years. Our immediate focus is on how we bring these capabilities in to enhance what we do. Looking ahead, there will be more and more implications. It will be fascinating as we get even more capabilities embedded.”

View the full panel discussion here.